ACT NOW to protect the margin on your YOUR tracker mortgage

ACT NOW to protect the margin on your YOUR tracker mortgage

13:57 PM, 24th September 2013, About 11 years ago 123

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Help us to protect YOUR tracker marginsIf you have a tracker mortgage you may be forgiven for thinking that your mortgage payments will only change when the base rate changes. 

Just suppose you open your post one day to find that your mortgage lender has decided to increase the tracker margin by a couple of percent!

Sounds unimaginable doesn’t it?

Well it isn’t, and you could be next!

This shocking news was recently delivered to 6,700 customers of the West Bromwich Building Society. What’s more, this is not something new, 13,500 Bristol & West and Bank of Ireland Mortgages customers received exactly the same treatment in February 2013.

Outraged? Their customers certainly were!

Could you be next???

West Brom stand to make an extra 19 million pounds a year if they get away with this. How much will your mortgage lender stand to make when they decide to do the same thing? It’s a big incentive for them isn’t it, especially if they think they are unlikely to be challenged due to the inability of landlords to raise the required funds to put up a fight.

If a group of named landlords decides to fight this in Court the claims will typically be for the value of the increase over the remaining term of the mortgage. By way of example, if your mortgage increases by £150 a month and you have 18 years to run on your mortgage your claim for damages would be £32,400.

We need to raise awareness if we are to raise the money to fight the test case

There are 6,700 affected borrowers with West Bromwich Building Society and a further 13,300 affected by bank of Ireland already. However, that doesn’t mean raising the required level of funding will be an easy task to achieve. Many of these people will never get to hear about this campaign and that’s where you come in. You may or may not be affected today but what about next week, next month or next year? To discourage your lender to follow the lead of WBBS and BoI and increasing your tracker margins we need to convince them they will have a fight on their hands if they do! Knowledge of our intentions will also act as a deterrent to other mortgage lenders due to the huge commercial risks associated with the potential for thousands of compensation claims running into hundreds of millions.

YOU can make a difference

Whether you are directly affected now or not, we urge you to help promote this campaign. The sooner we can raise enough interest, the sooner we can raise the money to commence litigation and stop this profiteering in its tracks. Please talk to your friends about this campaign and ask them to sign up. Please email a link to this discussion, share it on your Facebook, Tweet it, blog about it, post links on forums – SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!

Your wealth is at risk if you choose to ignore this message!

Please get involved and support this campaign by completing the form below.


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Comments

Richard Watters

12:36 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Excellent, thanks. I'll send them a further letter (to add to their admin workload) and cc The Ombudsman

Richard Watters

12:53 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Richard Watters" at "25/09/2013 - 12:36":

The address for The Financial Ombudsman is:

Financial Ombudsman Service
South Quay Plaza
183 Marsh Wall
London E14 9SR

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

13:03 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

.... and the link to The Financial Ombudsman website page explaining how to make a complaint is http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm
.

Ed Atkinson

14:11 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

There is a little confusion in my mind here. About half my mortgages are Mortgage Express which started on deals etc and reverted to their attractive Base plus 1.75% or so. They are not Trackers. If MX are so aggressive and yet have not increased the 1.75% margin, why will they be interested in the outcome of a class action which relates to Trackers?

I have registered anyway, but I'd like to be clear.

Well done Mark, Ed

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

14:17 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Ed Atkinson" at "25/09/2013 - 14:11":

Hi Ed

West Brom has no clauses in their offer letters referring to their rights to increase the margin, they didn't even refer to their special conditions booklet in the same way that BoI did. Therefore, WBBS have gone at least one step further than BoI, two if you include the fact that they also ignored the Oct 2004 mortgage regulations cut off date which BoI observed. If BoI and WBBS get away with this, what's to stop MX or any other lender attempting to push their luck even further?

Helen Landlord

14:34 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "25/09/2013 - 14:17":

I'm happy to support this action as I have a BTL tracker mortgage with West Brom. I agree that if we do nothing then more of the banks will chance their hand. Shocking!

Ed Atkinson

14:46 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "25/09/2013 - 14:17":

Yes, Mark I get that .

But the title of the campaign is "Protect your Tracker Margins" when a large proportion of the landlords we're seeking to enrol have MX non-trackers. They will ignore it as 'not my business' without even realising that it is important for them as well.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

14:48 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Ed Atkinson" at "25/09/2013 - 14:46":

Unless I'm mistaken, all MX products were tracker mortgages or reverted to tracker mortgages were they not? Mine certainly were.

Rachel Weaver

15:01 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Thanks guys! I have just sent my complaint letter off.

Ed Atkinson

15:35 PM, 25th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "25/09/2013 - 14:48":

I've looked at my MX files and I have not seen the word 'Tracker'. They started as either 'Discount' or fixed rates and then reverted to the 'Product Variable Rate'. The first one I took out in 2001 and then renewed the deal with various extra drawdown loans and discount rates etc. On first impression, they all seem to be part of the original contract rather than new ones. The key phrase in the 2001 agreement was straight: 'the interest rate will be 1.75% above base rate'.

Another MX mortgage offer (2004) states 'a variable rate of 6.5% (which is 1.75% above the Bank of England Base rate - currently 4.75%)' and later it states that the rate 'will revert to the variable rate .... for the remainder of the term'.

While it seems that MX don't seem to have room to increase this arbitrarily, my actual point is different. Customers like me don't have 'Tracker' in our minds as MX never used the term, and so we'll think this is not to do with us.

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